By Dayo Oketola

Friday, 22 Oct 2010

Nigeria‘s e-payment processing firm, Interswitch Limited, has acquired 60 per cent stake in Bankom Limited, thus holding the controlling stake in Uganda‘s only licensed interbank switch.

The Managing Director, Interswitch, Mr. Mitchell Elegbe, said on Thursday that the deal was sealed in Kampala last week and was brokered by Renaissance Capital, but declined to disclose the amount involved.

In a joint statement on Thursday, Elegbe and Bankom Chairman, Dr. William Kalema, said that the union created ”a stronger Bankom with a renewed ability to handle the growing demand for a robust, market-driven electronic payment infrastructure to drive the growth of payment products of real value to banks, corporate organisations, utilities, government and the people of Uganda.

”This is a union of like-minded solution providers, whose vision for Uganda is a nation-wide real-time electronic funds transfer and transaction processing and switching solution, that takes away the burden of backroom processing from the banks, allowing them to do what they do best- raising deposits and providing credit, thereby improving the customer experience both in and out of the banking hall.”

The duo said that they looked forward to a win-win relationship with member banks while creating a great user experience for their corporate, retail and government customers.

Source: Punch